I will survive
by sassafrass10
Summary: Watching everything happen while she can't do anything about it (on account of being dead) really creates motivation to make everything right on the second time around, when Rin finally returns to the land of the living. And everyone can kiss her ass if they think she's dying again.


The last thing she saw was Kakashi's surprised, horrified face. It figured, because she had just impaled herself on his arm.

She was a loyal ninja to Konoha and she knew her duty. But as her vision was fading- quite quickly, in fact- she cursed that duty, because her chest hurt _like a bitch_. She was just glad that she was dying so fast, because she doubted that she would be able to endure this pain longer than a few moments.

She let herself fall off of his hand with a _schluck_, feeling quite apologetic for leaving Kakashi as the lone survivor of Team Minato (of course, not counting Minato-sensei. He was practically invincible, and had much more important duties now. There was no more time for him to spend with them, on account of the war. She wished he were here, though. She wanted to say goodbye). Hearing the muffled, fuzzy voice of Kakashi yell her name, she just hoped that he would recover from this.

After all, he had now seen both of his teammates die in a bloody, violent way right in front of his eyes.

She hoped Kakashi wouldn't get too distracted. There were enemy ninja from Kirigakure around them. They were the ones, after all, that had sealed the tailed beast within her. Honestly, she felt quite sad for the monster. It was forced to be in her when she died, so technically she guessed that the beast would die as well. She knew in her heart that she had to sacrifice herself, or else the beast would be unleashed on Konoha.

She wished that she could re-do so many things of her life. She wished that she could have saved the people she loved, and she wished that she were so much stronger than she actually was. She knew that in time she could have become a jounin with hard work, and later grow up to have a family and retire at a good age. There were so, so many regrets.

Rin closed her eyes for the last time. It was too bad she was dying so young.

* * *

The first thing Rin was aware about was a strange sensation. She didn't really feel like a lot of time had passed. In fact, she would say that it was like when she closed her eyes she opened them just a second later. Except… she had no eyes. She didn't even have a body. She couldn't see herself, she couldn't move, she just was... there. Rin wondered how she could even form coherent thoughts.

She felt like she was everything. She was aware of everything and could simultaneously focus on many things at once. She knew of everything that was happening, and- was that her body on the ground?!

_Oh my god, I'm a ghost._

Kakashi was bent over her body, silently crying. She could see tears running down his face. All she wanted to do was reach out and touch him, and tell him that everything was all right.

He suddenly keeled over and passed out, and Rin freaked a little about the enemy ninja that were _still around _that could kill him. But then, her interest was piqued when she sensed another person going through a huge amount of grief. She looked more closely- and gave a tiny shriek of elation, unbelieving of who that person was.

It was her beloved, kooky, dumb (at times), and very late for everything teammate. He was back from the dead. He was the very teammate who sacrificed himself for his team, and gave one of his eyes to Kakashi when he knew he wasn't going to make it. The most selfless, happy, wonderful person she had known. If she had a body she would cry and hug him and never let him go. She thanked the stars that Kakashi would not be alone. Yes, she would be gone, and yes, she would miss being on a team with them terribly, but at least they had each other now.

It was then when she realized that an inhuman expression had appeared on Obito's face. And what was he wearing? It looked like some sort of twisted plant, except she sensed that it reeked with chakra. She observed him closer, and noticed that the one eye that he had had morphed into a strange shape. It was the eye that had been crushed under the rock, so it still had a sharingan, but it had morphed into something that seem more powerful and terrible.

Okay, so he looked kind of weird, but she knew that Obito was a good person, and right now she was judging him based on the way he was looking. Who knew what he had endured to get here?

Obito let out a scream that could have been mistaken for a wild animal and leapt. Rin cringed. The Hidden Mist shinobi who were around started fighting them. She watched in morbid fascination, as he tore them apart. Literally. The plant thing surrounding him stabbed through the shinobi as easily as cutting through butter, and he was untouchable. Things that should have hit him went right on through as if his body wasn't even there.

He cut through the Kirigakure ninja in about 5 minutes. And then he turned to the place where her body and Kakashi lay. He approached very unsteadily, pausing at her. She cringed at the size of the hole in her chest. No wonder it had hurt so much.

He gave out a sob, and moved onto Kakashi. She waited, hopeful that he would take him and bring him to Konoha, and they could live happily ever after together. But, something was off.

She knew something was seriously wrong when the plant armor that Obito had extended into some sort of point on his hand. He dropped to his knees next to Kakashi's unconscious body, and raised the stake. _Is… he planning to kill him?_

He was about to bring it down when Rin started to scream and yell and make all sort of a ruckus. At least, she would have if she had a mouth. _No, No, NO! Leave him alone!_

Obito stopped, and tilted his head, looking at the stake thing on his hand. Rin's hypothetical heart beat fast, and she cursed the fact that no one could hear her. Then, Obito reformed the point in his hand into something that looked like a knife and pushed it into Kakashi's neck. Rin's ghostly shrieks tripled. She freaked, she yelled, she tried hitting him but couldn't because she didn't have arms. All she could do was watch in dismay, until Obito stopped pushing the knife into Kakashi's neck, and instead jumped up and ran away as fast as he could. _Thank god. _

Rin was dumbfounded. She couldn't believe that he would try to kill Kakashi. She had the sinking feeling that if she hadn't tried so hard to stop him he would have succeeded in killing his ex-teammate. What had happened to him that was so bad that he would try to kill the very one whom he had sacrificed himself for?

Additionally, she had to figure out this new existence. What in the living daylights was she in? Why didn't she have a body? Why could she pay attention to everything and nothing at the same time? Whatever this was, she didn't like it. She didn't want to be out of the action, not being able to interact with everyone else.

As she fretted over the most recent events, she zoned out for a while, trying to collect her thoughts and calm down. When she finally came back to the present, she noticed that other Konoha shinobi had arrived to the sight where she died and Kakashi still lay. The ninja gently picked both of them up and carried them away.

* * *

And- life went on. As she loitered around her death site for a little bit, she wondered if she would get to go to a heaven of some sorts. She probably wouldn't, because she was a ninja, and what ninja would have a pure enough life record or conscious to be admitted into a place where the other good people are? She knew that people like her, with her job, didn't deserve a place like that.

She extended her awareness, and became aware of Obito. He was talking to an old, wrinkled man, who she could tell was on the verge of death. She watched, and as they talked, her heart sank as she realized whom this was. Rin wasn't stupid. In the ninja academy, they had covered the foundings of Konoha, and this person played directly into that. Obito was talking to Uchiha Madara.

"I am in hell," Obito said in such a defeated, warped way that her soul cried for him.

As time passed, she realized that she wasn't getting out of this. She saw everything happen (and she meant _everything_. It was gross), and soon much time had passed. She was aching for human interaction, for she saw a lot of it every day, but could never partake in it. And soon, she became starved of a simple conversation. She had no one to talk to, no one to keep her sane. The grief that overcame her every time she saw a death that no one knew about except her was almost unbearable. It was even worse that eventually the faces of the dead began to blend together, and she found that she almost didn't care about their deaths anymore.

After a few weeks of watching everyone and mourning once more about the loss of her life, she realized that she hated this existence with such a powerful passion that she would prefer oblivion than the awareness that she had. Being truly dead was so much simpler and easier, instead of watching her loved ones cry and go through hardships, while she couldn't do anything to make it better.

She was in some sort of state that was both alive and dead.

Did everyone go through this when they died? Were they forced to watch the rest of time unfold, without being able to interfere? Did they also have no one to talk to? Rin supposed that everything would get easier once everyone she once knew and loved had died, but the deaths of all her friends and family would be a long time coming.

Watching Kakashi spend 4 straight hours at the memorial stone, grieving all that he had lost, really solidified her thoughts about the state she was in. She knew now that she wasn't in heaven.

She agreed with Obito's earlier words: _I am in hell._

* * *

Rin had to distance herself from everything that happened, or else she would crack under the fact that she couldn't do anything. It was the only way to keep her sane. She didn't know if she would ever escape this hell and the only way to lessen the general miserable-ness of it was to become detached.

Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years, and soon her family had moved on, Kakashi had turned to porn to hide his grief and his many, many issues (Rin disapproved of this), Minato-sensei knocked up his girlfriend, Uzumaki Kushina (Rin approved of this. They needed a kid), and Obito had flown off the deep end completely.

She was disgusted and confused at how he had turned out. Apparently he was evil now, all for the sake of her. He was plotting something truly evil, but she didn't know what exactly, yet. She didn't really linger on him, anyways. There was a lot of regret that flooded through her every time she saw how he had turned out. It astonished her how Obito completely dedicated his life for the sake of her death.

She could tell that Madara was manipulating him quite heavily. It was embarrassing at how easily Obito accepted the things that Madara said. He clearly wasn't in the right mind.

Rin watched as Naruto, her sensei's son, was born. She saw Obito unleash the Kyuubi from Kushina, and saw her sensei sacrifice himself and his wife to save Konoha by sealing the nine-tails into his own son, leaving the poor Sandaime to come out of retirement and put on the Hokage hat once again. She saw the first years of Naruto's life, and his unhappiness.

From the first few years of Naruto's life, she watched death almost constantly threat him every day due to his stupidity or the others' assumptions that he _was_ the Kyuubi. She didn't know why she paid more attention to him, more than anyone. What could she say? She felt that the boy was important. She was drawn to him. He was her sensei's legacy.

Still, she never really paid attention long enough to see what everyone was doing, she just checked in every few often. From her sporadic glances at the world, she saw bits and pieces of her sensei's son's life. She really didn't know why she kept going back to check on him. She had given up on this point at ever getting out of the shithole she was in, and didn't really like to focus on the current events. But the way he acted about everything just pulled her to keep on watching him. He struggled through everything with a bright outlook, and she didn't know in the slightest how he managed it. In a way, she was looking at him for guidance at the proper outlook one should have in a hopeless situation, like the one she was in.

Rin saw Naruto struggle through school, fail the graduation test a couple of times, and then finally graduate because of a nicely place _tajuu kage bunshin no jutsu_. She was astounded when he first performed it, then realized that it probably was because of the extra chakra running through him from the nine-tails. She wondered how much chakra she would have had if she was still alive with the three-tails inside of her. Would she have been able to make a thousand shadow clones? The thought of it excited her, and then she immediately regretted it, because for the 1000th time, she had thought about _what life would have been like if I was still alive, I wish I was still alive_, and that never failed to cause her to fall into depression.

Rin saw Naruto almost fail the actual genin exam given to him by her dear Kakashi, who had turned so eccentric that it managed to be comical and sad at the same time. He had these two annoying teammates of his, a blue emo and a pink idiot. She knew inside that they probably weren't like that in real life, but the one passing glance she gave to them wasn't enough to tell. So she settled in calling them Blue Emo and the Pink Idiot, which was the main vibe that they gave off (their core personality).

Rin saw Naruto's chunin exams, and laughed at how his senselessness actually managed to get him through the entire thing. She saw, with some concern, Orochimaru fight them and give Blue Emo a hicky on his neck. She knew that he was a pedophile. She saw the events that unfolded at the final tournament, and watched Naruto beat the white emo. She watched, with some concern, at the actions of the one-tails jinchuuriki, whom she had dubbed Red Psycho.

Rin saw Blue Emo become more emo and eventually abandon Konoha to become a missing-nin with the pedophile. She was disappointed in Blue Emo. She knew that he was better than this. In a way, he reminded her of Kakashi (or "sex offender", she thought affectionately. She was going through a nickname phase). Well, before Obito kicked some sense into him. Blue Emo was basically all the bad parts of Kakashi. Blue Emo ran off with the science experiments, and there was a group to rescue them. She stopped watching at this point. She didn't want to know what happened. From the way that the odds were stacked up, she knew that things couldn't turn out well.

Her attention was caught again when Naruto came back from some training trip, much older and a little less stupid. She saw him try to rescue Red Psycho, who was now somehow the Kazekage, which she didn't understand how that came to be at all. Obito's group had kidnapped him. She noted that Obito was after jinchuuriki, but she didn't know what for.

Rin saw Naruto meet some zombies who literally seemed impossible to kill. He somehow and destroyed them anyways from an elemental affinity. Naruto then beat the shit out of one of Obito's minions, a guy named Pain (she marveled at how strong Naruto was, at only 15 years of age). Pain somehow had the rinnegan, and even though he was probably one the strongest people on earth, he was still whipped by Obito. She couldn't even begin to understand how Obito managed to get complete control over his organization, especially now because he was acting as a stupid idiot named "Tobi".

And then, everything went downhill.

Rin saw Shimura Danzo take over the Hokage's seat, which was a horrible decision considering what a slimeball he was. She saw Obito slowly but surely collect all the jinchuuriki, and waged a war against pretty much every person in the world. He got a creepy glasses-guy (she didn't know his name) to raise the dead, and all hell broke loose. Obito, who had less than 5 living people on his side, was holding the entire shinobi force of the combined 5 countries to a draw.

Did anyone see what was wrong with that picture?

Rin couldn't help it; she watched. She didn't see everything, but she focused on the important things to her. She watched her old teammates, and she watched Naruto. She saw Naruto merge with the Kyuubi, and start calling him Kurama. She saw Kakashi do many feats that would be talked about in history for years. And she saw Obito still do whatever-the-fuck he did when he was off being stupid and insane.

* * *

Things got worse and worse. And worser still. And then the final tipping point came. Obito walked into the room where Glasses had been cowardly ordering his zombies around in safety.

"Bring him back now."

"So soon? I would have thought that you would save him for the end…" Glasses stretched his face into what he probably thought was a smile.

"Just do it."

"Fine." Glasses made a hand sign, and placed a white rock onto the board in front of him. Rin had been watching him do this for a while, and concluded that he used that to track all the people he brought back and could control them to the utmost power. She hated this jutsu- it was cruel and unfair and was pretty low, even for a ninja.

"Kukuku… the war should be ended soon with him coming into the picture…"

_What?! _She extended her awareness and realized who had been brought back to life. It was Uchiha Madara, the manipulator who had talked Obito into helping him play out his plan. Rin honestly didn't even know that he had died. She thought that Madara was still in his hole and ordering Obito from the sidelines. _Shit, _she thought. _I don't directly know how strong he used to be in his prime, but from what I've heard, he had some serious horsepower. _

"I want you to bring back someone else, as well," Obito demanded. Rin fretted. What if it was the first Hokage? What if it was the Sage of Six Paths? _This jutsu is overpowered and cheap_. Obviously, they needed part of the remains of someone and some sacrifices, but with evil people like Glasses, he had no shortage of them. She wished she knew Glasses' name. The name "Glasses" didn't sound very threatening, but he was the main military force of the bad side, so obviously he was threatening indeed.

"Oh? And who will it be?"

Rin braced herself for the answer. Why did she even watch this anymore? She didn't see a possibility of Kakashi and Naruto winning now, with the stupid, stupid jutsu that brought back immortal powerful dead people.

"Nohara Rin."

Rin yelped. She was not expecting that. _The fuck, Obito! I will SO not be helping you guys! You all can kiss my ass! _Rin promised to herself that if she were brought back, she would fight it with all her might. She didn't want to be on the evil side.

"Kukuku… I thought you would request that. I already have her prepared."

Rin felt slightly disturbed.

Glasses made the hand gesture, and Rin felt a weird tug. _As if, _she thought. She would be fighting the pull the entire way. And fight she did. She pulled back, she focused on trying to pull at him, she screamed and twisted and pulled, and something finally went right for her. Glasses lessened his pulling, and frowned.

"It's almost as if she's fighting it. But, they can't even fight the Edo Tensei…" He trailed off with a confused look.

"Just bring her back." Obito ordered, ever the stoic and misguided soul he was these days.

Rin doubled her efforts. She felt like a band that had stretched around her, narrowing her awareness just to this room. She couldn't focus on other things anymore, like the current fight that Naruto was going through, or Kakashi's overuse of his sharingan and near chakra exhaustion. The band that was wrapping her was slowly tightening, and she thrashed and flailed and did everything she possibly could to make it stop.

The band started to draw her in towards Glasses. There was absolutely no way in hell that Rin was going to let herself get any nearer to the slimy bastard. She struggled the hardest she possibly could, and with great relief she felt the band get slightly looser. In fact, it felt like the band ripped a little. If the band was like a rubber band, it would have a nick on one part of it. Rin pulled and stretched the hypothetical nick, until it felt like the rip got a little bigger. _Yes!_ She couldn't believe that this was working. She kept on flailing and pulling until the band was cut almost all the way through, stretched out very thinly on the small piece that was still holding it together.

She felt very peculiar right now. It was almost like she had a body. It was curled up in a ball, trying to rip apart the band that was encasing her. Rin suddenly thought about how, when a rubber band suddenly snapped, it was painful for the one who broke it, because the two ends came right back to hit them. That thought worried her. Would this harm her? She knew that she had to man up and do this, but it was the first real threat to her since when she died. However, it was taking this risk or being forced to fight for the twisted Obito. _Get yourself together, Rin, _she addressed herself. _You __want__ to die, anyways. Suck it up. _This half-life that she was in was horrible, and she knew that it had changed her. She wondered how drastically her personality had been altered. The years that she had been "living" in solitude drove her partly insane.

The band had been ripped down to only a tiny bit holding it together. She took a moment to prepare herself, and then with all her strength, proceeded to snap the final part.

Glasses shot up in alarm. "What the-"

And then there was a black tunnel, surrounding her, encasing her. Obito and Glasses (whom she still didn't know the name of) disappeared. She was pulled helplessly through it. She felt it compressing into her, and she was compacted and jostled around until she could feel her body. Her _real_ body. She had arms and legs again! She had her mundane looks and ability to use chakra! She was aware that she wasn't where she used to be anymore. She couldn't see anything.

She was still being knocked around when she wondered how much longer this would last. And then, the answer came quite quickly to her, in the form of her passing out.

* * *

Rin opened her eyes.

"Rin! Wake up! You're going to be late for your first day at the academy! We don't want that!" Her mother bustled around her bed, and threw off Rin's covers. Rin stared.

"What the fuck," She breathed.

"Language!" Her mom snapped at her.

"Sorry…" Rin muttered. She felt shell-shocked. She looked around her room. Yup, it was her childhood room, the one she grew up in. _How am I alive? I was going to be edo tensei'd I should be a zombie instead, _she thought to herself. Then she remembered the whole struggling part that she did when Glasses tried to pull her into a body. Did she cause this to happen? Because now she was pretty sure that she had gone back in time.

"My goodness, Rin," Her mom responded. "Don't just repeat everything that you hear from your father."

Rin realized that this rushed conversation with her Kaa-chan was the first she'd had in decades. And she savored it, almost crying tears of joy at actually being able to interact with others and them hearing her. She smiled brightly at her mom. Her mom's face softened.

"Honey, you need to get dressed and eat _now,_" Kaa-chan said. "The academy starts in 15 minutes."

Rin sure as hell didn't want to be late. She jumped out of her bed, still pondering if everything she was doing was real, or maybe it was just a really good dream. _Am I a time-traveler? _She knew that she would try to change things around if she actually was thrown back in time. She would train harder, become stronger, and she wouldn't let Obito or herself die, you could count on it. Okay, so Obito didn't really die, but he was abducted by Madara and then twisted into an evil douchebag, so she counted it as the _old _Obito's death. She promised to herself in that moment that she would try to fix it all.

Rin was in the middle of brushing her teeth when she realized it. _Shit, I should have paid closer attention to everything._

* * *

_A/N: Welcome to my new Rin-centric story! The idea just sort of came to me, and I'm not sure how it will go over. But, I'm pretty sure no one's ever done this type of story before. Tell me if you want me to continue! (aka- review review review :D k thanks_)


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